Squid Game creator Hwang Dong-hyuk has revealed that the hit Netflix show almost had a different ending.
In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, director Hwang revealed that the ending of the ninth episode where Seong Gi-hun (player 456) chose to stay back in the country to seek revenge on those who designed the deadly game, instead of boarding a flight to visit his daughter, could have been different.
“We actually wrestled between two different scenarios for the ending,” the director revealed. “There was one, the other alternate ending, where Gi-hun would get on the plane and leave.”
“And then there was of course the one where he would turn back and walk towards the camera,” he added.
“We constantly asked ourselves, is it really right for Gi-hun to make the decision to leave and go see his family, to pursue his own happiness? Is that the right way for us to really propose the question or the message that we wanted to convey through the series?”
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“We came to the conclusion that the question that we wanted to propose cannot be done if he left on the plane,” he said.
“The question that we want to answer - why has the world come to what it is now? - can only be answered or can only be proposed if Gi-hun turned back and walked towards the camera. So that’s how we ended up with that ending in the finale.”
In the end, Hwang ended up going with the first ending.
Running for nine episodes, Squid Game’s first season follows an elaborate tournament in which desperate debtors are pitted against each other in a number of deadly children’s games, with the aim of winning a huge cash prize.
Ever since its release, the series became Netflix’s biggest ever launch, and is estimated to be worth almost $900 million (£654m) for the streaming service.
On Tuesday (9 November), it was also confirmed that Squid Game will be returning for a second season